20.7.12

Ike Turner Studio Productions 1963-1964


A treasure trove of mostly unissued studio work by Ike Turner circa 1963-1964.

It is excellent gift for all the lovers of Turner's early R&B sound and perhaps a little baffling for everybody else - after all,Turner created music that rarely crossed over into pop but if you like hard,sweaty,bluesy R&B of early 1960s this is definitely for you. It's a wonderful glimpse into the world of screaming,shouting and passionate soul singers with a blues background,very far removed from slick productions of "Motown" - some of the best cuts here are actually blues numbers ("I'm Tore Up", "I Smell Trouble", "Dust My Broom") while many others are all over the place, covering whole R&B spectrum of early 1960s, from ballads to uptempo numbers. Its also very interesting because it clearly shows what kind of voices Ike Turner preferred in his music - without exception singers that he worked with were all soul shouters with a dark,husky voices capable of tearing the studio walls down. Most of them are long forgotten now but make no mistake, they are all more than capable of handling this type of material with passion and style - than Tina comes along (cover of Maxine Brown's "All in my mind") and its clear she was hundred times better than anyone else around. If Ike's singers were all shouting,screaming and passionate, well she was towering above them all. 

Very interesting! Just listen to Tina screaming "Bring it down low! Bring it down low! One more time!"

1 comment:

*jaime said...

Thank you for posting this! Ike was such a workaholic.